Marlon Ramos v. Loretta Lynch , 622 F. App'x 432 ( 2015 )


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  •      Case: 14-60787      Document: 00513215322         Page: 1    Date Filed: 10/01/2015
    IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
    United States Court of Appeals
    Fifth Circuit
    No. 14-60787                                   FILED
    Summary Calendar                           October 1, 2015
    Lyle W. Cayce
    Clerk
    MARLON RAMOS,
    Petitioner
    v.
    LORETTA LYNCH, U. S. ATTORNEY GENERAL,
    Respondent
    Petition for Review of an Order of the
    Board of Immigration Appeals
    BIA No. A074 558 181
    Before WIENER, HIGGINSON, and COSTA, Circuit Judges
    STEPHEN A. HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge: *
    Marlon Ramos is a native and citizen of Honduras who entered the
    United States on December 25, 1995, without being inspected.                           Ramos
    conceded that he was deportable and filed an application for asylum and
    withholding of deportation. He failed to appear at the April 1, 1996 hearing
    on his applications for relief, however, and the immigration judge (IJ) ordered
    him deported to Honduras in absentia. Ramos did not report for deportation
    * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not
    be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH
    CIR. R. 47.5.4.
    Case: 14-60787     Document: 00513215322     Page: 2   Date Filed: 10/01/2015
    No. 14-60787
    in June 1996 as ordered, and he was arrested in Auburn, Washington, on
    March 9, 2011. Ramos then filed two motions to reopen his case; both were
    denied as untimely.
    On November 7, 2013, Ramos filed a third motion to reopen his case to
    allow him to apply for asylum.         Ramos supported that motion with a
    declaration stating that he feared returning to Honduras because of an ongoing
    land-ownership dispute between his family and a local politician, who Ramos
    believes was involved in the 1999 murder of his father and a 2007 attempt on
    his brother’s life. The IJ found that Ramos’s motion was based not on evidence
    of “changed country conditions” in Honduras, but on alleged changes in
    personal circumstances. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed
    Ramos’s appeal, noting that the land dispute began in 1994, before Ramos’s
    hearing. The BIA also concluded that Ramos failed to demonstrate prima facie
    eligibility for asylum on any protected ground. Ramos seeks review of the
    BIA’s dismissal of his appeal.
    We review the denial of a motion to reopen “under a highly deferential
    abuse-of-discretion standard.” Zhao v. Gonzales, 
    404 F.3d 295
    , 303 (5th Cir.
    2005). The BIA’s decision must be upheld as long as it is not “capricious,
    racially invidious, utterly without foundation in the evidence, or otherwise so
    irrational that it is arbitrary rather than the result of any perceptible rational
    approach.” Singh v. Gonzales, 
    436 F.3d 484
    , 487 (5th Cir. 2006) (citation
    omitted). “[M]otions to reopen deportation proceedings are ‘disfavored,’ and
    the moving party bears a ‘heavy burden.’” Altamirano-Lopez v. Gonzalez, 
    435 F.3d 547
    , 549–50 (5th Cir. 2006) (quoting INS v. Abudu, 
    485 U.S. 94
    , 107–10
    (1988)).
    Under the governing law at the time of Ramos’s merits hearing, a
    petitioner may file only one motion to reopen, and must generally do so within
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    No. 14-60787
    ninety days of the deportation order. 
    8 C.F.R. § 1003.23
    (b)(1). As noted, Ramos
    appeals the denial of his third motion to reopen, filed more than a decade after
    his hearing. Those time and number limits do not apply, however, to motions
    to reopen in order to apply for asylum based on “changed country conditions
    arising in the country of nationality or the country to which removal has been
    ordered, if such evidence is material and was not available and could not have
    been discovered or presented at the previous proceeding.” 
    Id.
     § 1003.23(b)(4)(i).
    To determine whether country conditions have materially changed, we
    compare the evidence of country conditions submitted with the motion to the
    conditions at the time of the merits hearing. Matter of S-Y-G, 
    24 I. & N. Dec. 247
    , 253–54 (BIA 2007); see also Panjwani v. Gonzales, 
    401 F.3d 626
    , 632–33
    (5th Cir. 2005). If the motion is not time- or number-barred, the alien still
    must “make a prima facie showing that there is a reasonable likelihood that
    the relief sought would be granted at the reopened hearing.” Marcello v. INS,
    
    694 F.2d 1033
    , 1035 (5th Cir. 1983).
    The materials Ramos offers do not establish that the BIA abused its
    discretion in concluding that country conditions in Honduras have not
    materially changed since his 1996 hearing. Indeed, his evidence pertains to
    the continuation of a land-ownership dispute that began in 1994—before
    Ramos came to the United States—and to general corruption and violence in
    Honduras. See Zhao v. Gonzales, 
    440 F.3d 405
    , 407 (7th Cir. 2005) (holding
    that changed personal circumstances do not justify a motion to reopen); cf.
    Ugochukwu v. Holder, 547 F. App’x 522, 523 (5th Cir. 2013) (despite post-
    hearing burning of family home, petitioner did not show country conditions
    were materially different from those at the time of his hearing); Thomas v.
    Holder, 396 F. App’x 60, 61 (5th Cir. 2010) (holding that political corruption
    and gang violence that had been occurring in Jamaica since the 1960s did not
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    No. 14-60787
    represent changed country conditions). Nor did the BIA abuse its discretion in
    concluding that Ramos failed to establish a prima facie case for the relief
    sought, as he did not explain how the land-ownership dispute created a well-
    founded fear of persecution linked to his membership in a statutorily protected
    group. See Ontunez-Tursios v. Ashcroft, 
    303 F.3d 341
    , 352–53 (5th Cir. 2002)
    (alien did not show land-ownership dispute was motivated by any protected
    ground). For these reasons, Ramos’s petition for review of the BIA’s decision
    is DENIED.
    Ramos has also filed a motion for clarification requesting reasons for this
    court’s denial of his prior motion for a stay of deportation. That motion, which
    is not supported by legal authority or substantive argument, is DENIED. And
    because Ramos has already been removed from the United States, his renewed
    motion for a stay of deportation is DENIED AS MOOT. See Jean v. Gonzalez,
    
    452 F.3d 392
    , 395 (5th Cir. 2006) (noting that request for stay was moot
    because petitioner had already been removed).
    4